Earlier, in measurements labeled "centuries"
by those for whom Time is a calculation, Mung wended her feeble way through unfamiliar
landscapes. Held in (discretionary) thrall for so long at Chan Lings mountain
hermitage, she had all but forgotten how to fend for herself. Nothing was as she
remembered it: smells less pungent (markings left by her long lost peers were so
negligible she doubted their reality), sounds duller (the impact of a perfectly ripe
persimmon used to attract Mungs ear before the tree itself was within sight), colors
fuzzier (already she had mistaken a hornbill for the fruit on which it feeds), sweet
indistinguishable from sour (as if her tongue were clad in a flannel mitten), and she felt
cold (despite protracted naps in patches of unobstructed sunbeams). It occurred to Mung,
at last, that she, not Earth, had changed grown old lived beyond the
limits commonly set by conditions on a Planet exposed to Elements. Chans had been
not only an isolating environment but a protective onethis truth made painfully
plain by Mungs first night at large, when Wind conspired with Rain and Darkness to
keep creature comforts at bay. The banyans humid hollow, in which she had finally
taken refuge, provided a poor accommodation indeed, compared to her cozy skullcap in the
Chinamans toasty workshop. Soaked to her shriveled hide, age-worn molars aching from
recurrent fits of frigid chattering, her spine unwinding creakily from its collar to
coccyx curl, she had greeted the break of day with a broken howdy-do.

That was a while back. Moon
and Sun had traded places several times since. Frailty notwithstanding, Mungs knack
for survival had returned, her sense of mission serving to conceal an unmistakable stench
of insecurity. Predators were everywhere: vipers gliding through the underbrush, eagles
soaring overhead, a boundless zoo of sharp-fanged prowlers in between. Meat-eaters hunted
at all hours (daytime, swing shift, graveyard), making Mungs expedition a constant
test of luck and wilderness wiles. This, too, she had forgotten; the eat or be eaten (eat
AND be eaten) balance of Nature.

No wonder the Uprights,
with their psychotic fear of Death, did everything within their power to guard against it.
Death, the Last Inevitable, was a frightening prospect, even to a wizened little ape the
likes of Mungwho knew better. Or thought she did, before cohabiting with the
Scrivener, lo those countless seasons. Had industriousness remolded her untamed spirit?
Had domestication atrophied her feral independence? Had chronic contact with Humanity
insinuated values in ruinous contradiction of Mungs inestimable Code? To be
Primitive was not to be unenlightened; quite the contrary. To be Primitive was to
cultivate indigenousness, an unequivocal Knowing of what it meant to belong. This had been
Mungs birthright. In reclaiming itstep by stepshe learned to relax.

Which is not to say she
proceeded with any less caution. To accept that Life is transitory is different from
tossing it away; rare does a fly tempt the frogs sticky tongue, save through
recklessness. Still, Death reassumed its proper place, enhancing Mungs immediacy by
promising no tomorrow. She would find her brethren, or die in the attempt. Chance (the
only-child of Chaos), after all, was the Crown Determiner.

On she went, mostly via
treetops, chancing fatal encounters with birds of prey in exchange for intermittent
overviews of the jungles sprawling territory, hoping to gain her bearings, foiled by
elderly eyesight and a nose stopped up, evidently, with the stink of Man. Time and again
Mung tried to clear her sinuses, only to have Chans odor re-invade, until she feared
her escape route was merely a series of unavailing circles. Then a more unsettling insight
dawned; all these stinky whiffs were not from Chan but rather his genotypes,
drifting across the canopy from every direction, causing Mung to ricochet,
pinball-fashion, on a zigzag course. To where, she could only guess. To wherever the
stench of Humanity no longer fouled the atmosphere, for Mung was certain her relatives
maintained a healthy distancehidden in the farthest enclave the Elders could secure.

But what report would Mung
make, if and when her troupe and she were reunited? Days were too few already to pass on
all the knowledge she had gained. How condense a life span of consorting with an Upright
into one, comprehensive, planet-saving revelation? It was not enough merely to forecast
Earths overrun by the creature called Sapiens; that much had been known for
generations. Nor would it do any good to expound on the Uprights double-edged mind
(an anomaly capable of doing damage, enormous damage, whether or not it malfunctioned).
What was needed was an antidote. Earth was beset by a wondrous-woeful pestilence, one
pre-destined to subjugate (and eventually supplant) each and every other living thing.
What Mung must distill from her years of intelligence-gathering was a remedy. For this,
she referred to the last work Chan transcribed (in her eavesdropping company); a study of
maladies and cures as set down by Chinas most revered apothecaries, a compendium of
ordinary and arcane compounds known to alleviate disorders. Or, if read
counter-offensively, known to inflict them. Satisfied that therein lay her species
salvation, Mung proceeded to rack her brittle brain. Something must divert Mans
genocidal course.

After journeying day and
night and night and day, sleep a seldom-sampled luxury, progress a laughable lesson in the
retardation of age, Mung came upon a sure sign that Others were in the vicinity. A nest
(hammock-like in appearance and structure, the kind her fellows wove when on the move)
spanned a branchs crook like an idle slingshot. Unmistakable, by virtue of its
dainty scale and intricate design, the bantam cradle rocked in a gentle breeze
stirring, within Mungs bird cage of a bosom, retroactive yearnings:

for her mother, her sisters
and brothers, aunts and uncles,

even for her orbiting
father (the troupes dominant male),

and for the Elders, whose
patience and humble sagacity were treasured unto second childhood, when care and
tenderness redoubled out of respect for longevitys closing its gums on Lifes
fragile tail.

Mourning these losses,
another came to mind, as Mung nuzzled the abandoned handicraft, sorry, of a sudden, for
having sacrificed maternity in her quest for erudition. Many a season she had come into
heat, only to extinguish the flames, stamping them out like a brush fire under scorched
palms and footpads. To what end, she now askednostrils in the grip of a sniffling
nostalgia? What was Spring without offspring? Mung rued her dearth of descendants; she had
bred a dubious substitute, a mere chemical formula to be thrust upon those unschooled, as
yet, in science.

She consoled herself with a
slightly overripe mangosteen salvaged from the forest floor, jaws more muscular than hers
having split its leathery husk, each luscious section close enough to fermentation that
eating one sufficed to make her somewhat tipsy. She thanked both fruit and proffering tree
(more profusely than was necessary), grateful for feeling reconnected by sinews of
symbioses accepting a lift from an overhanging liana ascending its undisclosed
length proceeding onto its source or terminationsuddenly a distinction of
dizzy indifference paths to pass the time Here as good as There
Mungs objective less determined, more a matter of orientation reverting, as
she was, to the Wilds eccentric anarchy adjusting her pulse as a bass player
modifies tempo to keep herself apace with the all-pervasive Now however long
it might last eons, to date; Mungs genetic memory stretched past the Past,
predated History, called to mind the Granddame
of Yesteryear, echoing unto Pangaea and the
very origin of her circumspect clan.